Sewage-dumping Rainier worker pleads guilty

BY LEVI PULKKINEN, SEATTLEPI.COM STAFF

Published 1:25 pm, Friday, September 28, 2012

A treatment plant operator accused of dumping 200,000 of raw sewage into a stream at Mount Rainier National Park has pleaded guilty.

Pleading guilty Friday to a misdemeanor charge, James Barber admitted he in August 2011 rerouted minimally treated sewage from a treatment plant near Paradise into the Nisqually River.

According to charging documents, Barber failed to conduct basic maintenance at the treatment plant, which serves an inn and visitors center.

The plant faced a critical failure when Barber, a 52-year-old Yelm man, bypassed the treatment facility and sent 200,000 gallons of sewage into a drainage ditch. That ditch poured into a tributary to the Nisqually River, which ultimately received the waste over four days.

Writing the court, Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Diggs contended Barber’s “gross mismanagement” of the facility created the crisis. Diggs also claimed Barber attempted to hide his misdeed.

“James Barber did not notify anyone that he had bypassed the treatment plant, did not sample the bypassed waste, and did not record the bypass and discharge of the minimally treated sewage in the log books for the treatment plant,” Diggs told the court. “Instead, he left for several days off from work, informing none of his colleagues or supervisors about the bypass of waste.”

As part of his guilty plea, Barber agreed to resign from the Park Service and give up his certification as a wastewater facility operator. He will also be banned from Mount Rainier National Park for five years.

Barber pleaded guilty to one count of violating the Clean Water Act, a misdemeanor. He is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 14 by U.S. Magistrate Judge Richard Creatura.